Action and thrills collide on the slopes in the Sylvester Stallone action vehicle Cliffhanger, directed by Renny Harlin. Columbia has done an excellent job on this 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Everything about this picture looks clean, crisp, and very well-rendered with no signs of edge enhancement or digital artifacting present. All color schemes and black levels are top-notch with the fleshtones appearing bright and natural. The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 in English as well as Dolby Digital 2.0 in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. This 5.1 soundtrack is very well-mixed featuring bombastic surround sounds through both the front and rear speakers. All aspects of the dialogue, effects, and Trevor Jones' music score are free of any excessive distortion or hiss. Also included on this disc are English, Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish subtitles. Cliffhanger: Special Edition DVD is filled with some great extra features, starting off with two commentary tracks, one by star Sylvester Stallone and director Renny Harlin, and a second by some of the effects crew from the film. Both of these commentaries provide a wealth of knowledge on the making of the film, and are insightful as to how the story came into focus for all involved (as expected, the effects crew commentary track is more on the technical side). A special introduction by Renny Harlin includes the director discussing why he decided to make the film. "Stallone: On the Edge" is a 20-minute look at the making of Cliffhanger, which includes a lot of behind-the-scenes footage. Two deleted scenes are available in a rough cut form, plus some explanation by the director on why they were cut from the final film. "Special Effects: How It Was Done" highlights two scenes from the film, showing how the effects were constructed and accomplished. Finally, there are some storyboard comparisons, two photo galleries with location and behind-the-scenes pictures, some talent files on the cast and crew, and a theatrical trailer of the movie with an introduction by the director (the trailer is considered one of the best movie previews ever made). This is an excellent edition of Cliffhanger and a must for any serious action movie fan.

A starship is stranded in the uncharted Delta Quadrant in this fourth Star Trek series, the first to feature a female captain (Kate Mulgrew). Here, the crew grudgingly teams with Maquis rebels to try to return to Earth after Voyager is hurtled 70,000 light-years from Federation space. This release contains all episodes from season four of the series.

M*A*S*H: Season Three has the same virtues and flaws as the preceding and succeeding discs in Fox's DVD release cycle -- well-nigh perfect transfers of uncut episodes, each with five chapter breaks (corresponding to the broadcast segment breaks), eight shows to a disc, and each accessible individually (there is no "play all" option). The transfers are all spot-on perfect in the standard full-screen 1.33:1 television aspect ratio. This set is a little different from the others in one respect, having to do with the special attributes of that particular season. The third season of M*A*S*H was unique -- at least in three episodes -- for its peculiar use of music and the related presence of singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III in the role of Captain Calvin Spaulding for three episodes. Virtually every network series ends up getting cut in syndicated reruns in order to take advantage of the greater allowable time for commercials, and these cuts create problems while watching this set. Two of Wainwright's shows, Rainbow Bridge and There's Nothing Like a Nurse, as broadcast in syndication leave his work intact, as his scenes in the latter all involve stars Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers, as well as a song sung over a montage of the doctors' antics with the absent nurses; and in the former, his performance of "South Korea Blues" bridges the sections of the episode. Those shows demonstrate how special his contribution was in helping to expand the series' narrative structure, and point up what we're missing in the syndicated version of his third show, Big Mac. The latter is a revelation here, for the two scenes with Wainwright are usually cut out of syndicated version. (The episode involves an announced inspection of the MASH 4077th by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and the preparations therein.) On the DVD, it's delightful to see Wainwright's Captain Spaulding singing a snide, derisive tribute to the five-star general and also providing the coda to the non-event of the general's visit. It restored a piercing satirical quality that is missing from the syndicated version of the episode. Those moments coupled with the overall quality of the season make this volume an especially attractive purchase.